Things I Learned This Week

1. Post #600

How insane is that?

This post marks the 600th time I've sat down to share my thoughts with you on something completely random and the fact that we've reached yet another landmark is crazy to me.

Not that I didn't think I could actually do it, but really, getting to 600 posts without having taken an kind of massive hiatus in the middle is impressive to me.

More impressive is that some of you have been reading since the first week. Words can't express how appreciative I am...

2. Big Day for Tim & Michelle

My brother-in-law and his girlfriend officially took possession of their house last Saturday (yes, I know that makes it a thing I learned last week...) and celebrated by getting engaged!

Congratulations!

Couldn't be happier - they're a great couple and quickly becoming two of our best friends, so getting to hit up their wedding sometime next year (or whenever) and having them relatively close by is outstanding.

3. No Smokes in 5 Weeks

I didn't want to say anything until I had passed the one month point, then I was too lazy to write last weekend, so now we're at Week 5 sans darts and I'm pretty damn proud of myself.

For the most part, it's been fairly easy; only a couple moments here and there where I've thought a smoke would be fantastic, but to be totally honest, I haven't really noticed.

No special gum, no silly patches and no conversations with my doctor. Just good old fashioned will power...

4. Funny People: Not Over Funny

Judd Apatow tried to make a funny and touching movie (at least that what it seems like) and kinda missed the boat on both.

There are some funny moments and some touching moments, but after 140 minutes of watching Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan hang out together, I was left thinking that they should have either went full-on funny or full-on touching, but not tried to do both.

The potential was there, but it seemed to all kind of miss the mark as a whole.

That being said, Apatow is a massive success and I'm douche who rights a blog that only 43 people read, so who am I to judge?

5. Everywhere We Go, Bad Waitresses Follow

Going out with Tim and Michelle must set off some kind of bad waitress beacon because each of the last couple times we've been out, the service has been brutal.

Between giving us our bill the minute we decided to take a pause from consuming mass quantities of booze to, you know, breath and last night's all-around useless waitress, we need to stick to staying in and getting sloshed.

Last night's server was a gem, kind enough to ask if we wanted beef on our nachos only to return 17 seconds later to double check that we said yes, which we didn't, then have the aforementioned unwanted and unserved beef show up on our bill.

Additionally, a vodka water with a lime apparently means vodka, water and a splash of bar lime with a lemon wedge.

Most traumatic of all? I can't get a job as a server to save my life right now...

6. But I Can Haul Produce!

That sounds like the career path of choice for right now, since it's the only career path being offered to me. Maybe it's the right way to go.

Full-time bartender at Kelsey's turned into mostly working as a server and not accumulating enough hours over the year to even qualify for Employment Insurance, so truly guaranteed eight-hour shifts five days a week will be a nice change of pace.

Besides, I won't bitch about having a better way to do everything like I always have working in restaurants and bars since I don't know the first thing about hauling produce.

7. I'm Now a Classic Radio Station Guy!

When I jump in the car now, I don't find the local pop station or the local rock station. I tune to Jack FM or a classic hits station that plays the stuff I grew up on...

How did this happen?

The stuff I grew up on is supposed to still be the cool stuff and what everyone is listening to. Flipping to the local pop station proves that is untrue, as my music doesn't involve computers digitally serving as every artists' voice like it does now.

Jay-Z is right: Death to Auto-Tune!

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10 Things I Learned This Week

My first full week back in the mountains has been an interesting affair to say the least.

As per usual, I feel the need to share it with you, no matter how embarrassed it makes Sarah...

1. The Deer are Not Alone
I've officially gotten over my "Look at the deer" wonderment of how cool it is that they are everywhere. I'm sick of them and you can add elk to that list too. Without exaggeration, we saw 150 deer and a couple herds of elk yesterday along the TCH (Trans Canada Highway) coming home from Calgary, including the stupid, massive elk in the middle of the other lane. Them fuckers don't just ruin your car, either.

2. We'd Have Been Home Sooner But...
There was a bit of a lost property issue. Namely, Sarah's wallet. Now, lemme start by saying my new wife is the type who will leave her wallet sitting in the shopping cart then walk off to look at things. This is how I wound up carrying around a wallet yesterday. She also managed to unload all the goodies we picked up and return the cart with her wallet still in the cart. Thankfully, she figured it out while we were across the street, not on the way home and they had it for us at the store. What makes it all the more awesome is that she had an over the shoulder bag with her, but it stayed in the car where it was most useful.

3. Customer Service Excellence
So when I walked back in to Home Outfitters to inquire about Sarah's wallet, the lady who was serving us did a cursory check of her area, ask one person and wished us luck in our search. When I went back in to leave our contact information and get the number for the credit card companies, she handed me the Calgary phone book. We had accepted defeat. Fifteen minutes down the road, the store manager called and said she had Sarah's wallet. Turns out, no one had thought to ask her, something she was wickedly sarcastic about when we met her back at the store. Good to see people helping people in action.

4. We Got a Ton of Stuff for $9
This whole Calgary misadventure came about because we were registered at Home Outfitters and had gifts to pick up. Yes, Calgary is the closest store. -1 for the East Kootenays, yes. Anyway, we also received $150 in Gift Cards from various people, so in the end, we had a trunk and backseat full of gear - all wonderful by the way - and all it cost us was $9. Plus gas, food and my mild heart attack when Sarah "lost" her wallet, but still... $9.

5. Rediscovered Passion
Taking nearly three weeks off writing was hard; necessary, but hard. Since returning, the fire is back and Keyboard Kimura has a lot to do with that. Yes, I'm plugging my new blog again. Having a daily outlet for the sport I love makes me want to sit at this computer and once I get flowing, I could go for hours. Not that writing here isn't inspiring, but there is so much about MMA that I want to address and talk about and rant on and whatever that creating that site should have happened six months ago when I first thought up the name.

6. A Brief Clarification
This is for everyone who has ever said, "Why don't you just write a book" to me since I've taken up this craft. Trust me, I absolutely want to and have finally started down that road. That being said, do you have any idea how long a process it can be? It's not like I can sit for a couple days and viola - book is done, especially when I have other commitments. I'd love to take six months and sit here for 10 hours a day, but (1) I have to work and (2) I have a life to live. Yes, writing is a huge part of it, but not more so than my wife and my dog. It's going to take time, but it's going to get done.

7. One Month, Only a Couple Smokes
I didn't want to say anything because, well, you've heard it time and time again. However, in the last month, I've had three smokes. Three! Sure, there were cigars in Samana - and one in Ty's backyard the other night - but after being a smokerson for nearly 15 years, three darts in a months is awesome, even if I am the only one who thinks so.

8. Seriously, What's with the Music?
I listened to an "urban" radio station for the first time in ages yesterday (-2 for the East Kootenays if you're keeping track) and all it did was add to Tuesday's frustrations with the state of popular music. What in the hell is Kiss Me Through the Phone? To their credit, at least the delivered some K'naan and Classified, but the rest of the countdown was garbage.

9. Speaking of 98.5 Vibe in Calgary
How the hell do you have a DJ who actually knows nothing about the artists he's playing? This dude - ON AIR - couldn't remember whether Classified was from the East Coast or West Coast (East Coast...) and rambled on about how K'naan was from The Sudan and what he went through. Too bad he's from Somalia. Killing me!

10. They're Having a Girl, As Predicted
Pete & Brooke are pregnant (I think I told you that before) and they found out this week that they're having a girl. Faye and I both predicted this in the Dominican. Not by the way Brooke is carrying or any kind of science; we roll on the simple basis that we want Pete to be tortured as much as possible and well, having girls will do that to him. Emily Grace is going to be plenty once she grows up, now there will be another.

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Black Bear Video: So Much Better Than Blockbuster!

Back in the early days of iBlog, I was working at Blockbuster.

You remember; once or twice a week I would bitch and complain about the customers or the company or whatever.

Ah, the good old days.

Turns out, moving to Kimberley further proved just how absolutely ridiculous Blockbuster Video and all the other corporate video stores truly are...

See, I now rent my movies at Black Bear Video and Books. Yeah, they have books too and by books, I don't mean magazines and I certainly don't mean porn like customers used to ask all too often at Blockbuster.

They also let me bring Luke into the store, provided he doesn't pee on anything like he tried to do today before Sarah whisked him out of the store to whiz.

Oh, they also sell the most incredible, homemade gellato I've ever tasted. Yeah, gellato, as in "better than ice cream" and they make it right there and it's cheap and delicious and awesome.

But the capper - you know, besides the clerks not wearing uniforms, trying to sell you everything from a $20 coupon book you're sure to forget and the annoying loop of crappy trailers blaring in the background - comes down to money.

Monday to Thursday, two new releases... $7. Yeah, seven dollars, also known as 93 cents more than it cost to rent one new release at Blockbuster. It's not like the price skyrockets on weekends either. That extra dollar they charge me certainly isn't going to break the bank.

And previously viewed movies aren't stickered arbitrarily and placed on a giant display wall; they're in a couple cool old milk boxes and are $5 each. Old, new, whatever. $5, as in "Today I bought Pineapple Express and Max Payne for $5 each."

One and for all, Black Bear Video has proven something that I knew all along: Blockbuster Video sucks balls.

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When Did Customer Service Become a Bad Thing?

Over the last couple weeks, my experiences as a customer have been horrible. Not everywhere, mind you, because it's hard for the grocery store to make your experience miserable, but for the most part, it's been bad.

By now you all know the Marlin Travel situation. For those who don't, the Cliff Notes:

Four months of planning went out the window because our original agent couldn't get things done quick enough and without errors. Then the new agent came on, got things organized and ready to roll only to have the carrier pull out three months before our wedding.

Now, some eight months after we started the process, we finally received confirmation that all the rooms are booked and we are in fact getting married when and where we wanted. Of course, there are still hiccups like getting two different quotes for deposits, having three people giving us three different answers and all the while we're the ones being made to feel like assholes for caring so much about our wedding.

Super!

Experience #2 comes in the form of one of my favorite TV channels, The Score, who owe me a prize pack from back in October.

Long story short, I answered a multiple choice question on one of their shows, was proclaimed the winner of a prize and have yet to receive anything.

I've called, emailed repeatedly and called again.

Last week, someone finally emailed me back saying they'd look into it.

Today, I emailed her back again asking if she was planning to look into things any time soon.

What kind of response did I get?

First, I had to detail when and how I won, which I did since I have a sick memory for thing like that.

Secondly, once she did confirm my winning, I was asked for a mailing address where my prize could be sent. Being as I live in a tiny-ass town without home delivery of the mail, I gave my PO Box.

That wasn't good enough. I actually received an email that said, "We can't send prizes to PO Boxes."

Well that's all I have, so unless you're FedEx'ing it to my front door...

(That is exactly what I said in my email too!)

Now, I'm in the service industry and have been for years. If at any point along the way I was to make my customers experiences as annoying and challenging as these two organizations have made things for me, I would have been back in the Unemployment Line.

Maybe I'm an anomaly. Or maybe these people absolutely suck at their jobs and should get out of the Customer Service business.

With the warm, glowing personalities they have, a career in mortuary science would be a perfect fit since they all seem to hate living, breathing humans.

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Note: I understand the irony of posting a second piece on the same day as I wrote a "things will be becoming more sporadic around here" post. This is what happens when I get down to work early in the day and don't sit on the couch playing Fight Night or watching Food TV.

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